Dark Assassin

ELEVEN

By the time Monk returned home to Paradise Street after the following day's court, it was dark and raining again. The gutters were awash, slopping over onto the cobbles. The reflections from the lamps danced on wet stone, and the clatter of hooves was broken by splashing. The cold wind coming up from the river carried wreaths of mist that stretched out, wrapped around trees and even houses, then elongated and disappeared again.

Inside, the house was warm. The kitchen smelled of new bread, clean linen, and something savory. Hester greeted him at the door.

"He's fine," she said before he asked.

He smiled as the sweetness of it soaked into him.

"He's been asleep on and off," she went on. "He looks a lot better."

He held her close, kissing her mouth, then her cheek and eyes and hair, allowing the rest of the world to be closed out for a few precious minutes. Then he went upstairs to change into dry clothes and to see Scuff.

"How are you?" he asked.

Scuff stirred and sat up very slowly, blinking a little. He seemed uncertain how to answer.

"Are you worse?" Monk said anxiously.

Scuff grinned lopsidedly. "It 'urts like bleedin' 'eck," he said frankly. "But that egg stuff as she makes is real good. D'yer know some o' 'em places she's bin?" His eyes were huge with amazement and more admiration than he was probably aware of. "I in't never 'eard o' some o' 'em!"

"Neither have I," Monk conceded, coming in and sitting on the edge of the bed.

"She told me 'bout wot she done in the army an' such."

"Me too, now and then. She doesn't talk about it a lot."

"Sad, eh? All 'em men 'urt bad." Scuff frowned. "Lot o' ' em died. She din't say so, but I reckon as they did."

"Yes, I reckon so, too. Are you hungry?"

"Yeah. Are you?"

"Yes."

Scuff tried to climb over to the edge of the bed, as if he would come downstairs to eat.

"No!" Monk said sharply. "I'll bring it up to you!"

"Yer don't 'ave ter," Scuff began.

"I'd rather carry the supper up than have to carry you again," Monk told him dryly. "Stay where you are!"

Scuff subsided and inched back to the center again. He lay against the pillow, watching Monk.

"Please don't fall out," Monk said more gently. "You'll hurt yourself worse."

Scuff said nothing, but he did not move again.

They were all three of them in the bedroom, halfway through eating, when the interruption came. Hester was cutting up vegetables for Scuff and letting him pick them up with a fork. He did it carefully, uncertain at first how to manage. Monk was eating steak and kidney pie with a vigorous appetite. Suddenly there was a loud knocking on the door, again and again, almost as if someone were trying to break in.

Monk put his plate on the tray, the last mouthful uneaten, and went downstairs to find out what it was.

Orme stood on the step in the rain, his hair plastered to his head, his face white. He did not wait for Monk to ask what it was, nor did he attempt to come in.

"There's bin a cave-in," he said hoarsely. "Down at the Argyll tunnel. The 'ole lot. It all came in and God knows 'ow many men's buried."

It was what James Havilland had feared, and Monk would have given everything he owned not to have had him proved right. "Do they know what caused it?" he asked, his voice shaking. Even his hand on the door felt cold and somehow disembodied.

"Not yet," Orme said, ignoring the rain dripping down his face. "Suddenly the 'ole side just slid in, wi' water be'ind it, like a river. An' then 'bout fifty yards further up the line 'nother lot went. I'm goin' back there, sir, ter see if I can 'elp. Although God knows if anyone can."

"Another slide? That means there are men trapped between the two? Is there any sewage down there?"

"Dunno, Mr. Monk. Depends on wot it were that slid. It's close ter one o' the old sewers as is still used. Could be. I know wot yer thinking- gas…" He did not finish.

"I'll come with you." There was no question of what he must do. "Come in out of the rain while I tell my wife." He left the door open and went up the stairs two at a time.

Hester was standing in the bedroom doorway, Scuff sitting up on the bed behind her. Both of them had heard Orme's voice and caught the sound of fear in it.

"There's been a cave-in. I have to go," he told her.

"Injuries? Can-" She stopped.

He gave her a quick smile. "No. Your place is here with Scuff." He kissed her quickly, harder perhaps than he meant to. Then he turned and went back down the stairs again, took his coat from the hook in the hall, and followed Orme out into the street.

There was a hansom waiting. They climbed in and shouted to the driver to hurry back to the tunnel. He needed no urging.

They clattered through the streets. The long whip curled over the horse's back, and water sprayed from the wheels on either side. It took them nearly half an hour to get there, even at this time of night, when there was no traffic. As Orme scrambled out, Monk paid the driver too generously, then followed Orme into the darkness and the rain. Ahead of them, a maze of lamps was moving jerkily as men stumbled over rubble and broken beams as carefully as they could to avoid falling.

Monk was aware of shouting, the sting of wind and rain, and- somewhere, though he could not see where-the thrum of one of the big engines for lifting the rubble. Beyond the periphery of the disaster area there were carriages waiting, and ambulances.

"Bloody awful mess!" Crow emerged into a small pool of light. His black hair was soaked. If he had ever had a medical bag, he had lost it. His hands were covered with blood. Judging by the gash on his left forearm, at least some of it was his own.

"How can we help?" Monk said simply. "Can we get anyone out?"

"God knows," Crow answered. "But we've got to try. Be careful, the ground's giving way all over the place. Watch where you put your weight, and if it goes, yell! Even in this noise, someone may hear you. Throw yourself flat-that'll give you at least some chance of finding a beam or a piece of something to hang on to. Stand straight and you'll go down like an arrow." As he spoke he was leading the way towards a group of lanterns about a hundred yards further on, which were swaying as the men carrying them picked their footing to go deeper into the cave-in area.

"What happened?" Monk asked, having to raise his voice now above the thud and grind of the machine digging and unloading the rubble.

"Must have dug too close to a small river," Crow shouted back. "London's riddled with them. All this burrowing and digging around, and some of them have moved course. Only takes a couple of feet, a change from clay to shale, or striking an old culvert, a cellar or something, and the whole thing can turn. Sometimes it just goes around it and back to the-Watch your feet!"

The last was a shout of warning as Monk's foot sank into a squelching hole. He pitched forward, only just catching Orme's arm in time to pull himself upright and haul his foot out. His leg was now coated in sludge up to his knee. Shock robbed him of breath, and he found himself gasping even after he had regained his balance.

Crow slapped him on the shoulder. "We'd better stay together," he said loudly. "Come on!"

Monk leapt up with him. "Someone must have known this was going to happen," he said.

"Sixsmith?" Crow asked, keeping moving.

"Havilland, actually," Monk replied.

Crow stopped abruptly. "Murdered because of it?" There was surprise in his voice, and but for the wavering lights his expression was invisible. "I don't know. If he had sense enough to listen to some of the older toshers, maybe. Some of them knew things that aren't written down anywhere. Just lore passed from father to son."

They were at the edge of the crater, which seemed a fathomless pit. Monk felt his stomach clench, and his body shook even though he tensed every muscle to try to control it.

A little man, broad-shouldered and bow-legged, came towards them. He had a lantern built into his hat, so both his hands were left free. There was too much noise of clattering earth and the thrum of the great machine for him to try to be heard. He waved his arms for them to follow, then turned and led the way down.

Monk lost all count of time, and finally of direction also, even of how deep he was and the distance he would have to go upwards to find clean air or feel the wind on his face. Everything was wet. He could hear water seeping down the walls, dripping, sloshing under his feet, sometimes even the steady flow of a stream: a sort of thin, wet rattle all the time.

Someone had given him a short-handled shovel. He ignored his painful shoulder and worked with Crow to begin with, digging away fallen debris by the dim light of lanterns, trying to reach trapped or crushed men. Then Crow went up again with bodies, and Monk found himself beside a barrel-chested navvy and a tosher with a broken front tooth that made his breath whistle as he heaved and dug.

The light was sporadic. One moment the lantern would be steady, held high to see an arm or a leg, distinguish a human limb from the timbers or a head from the rounded stones of the rubble. At others it rested on the ground while they dug, pulling, hoping, and then realizing there was nothing to find, and moving on, going deeper.

At one point they broke through into a preexisting tunnel and were able to go twenty yards before finding another slide and starting to dig again. It was under this one that they found two bodies. One was still just alive, but even with all they could do to help, the man died as they were trying to move him. His injuries were too gross for him to have stood or walked again, and yet Monk felt a crushing sense of defeat. His mind told him the man was better dead than facing months of agony and the despair of knowing he would remain a cripple, in shattering pain and utterly helpless. But still, death was such a final defeat.

He returned slowly, his body aching, to the heap of waste. He held his lantern high to see if the other man could be brought up for identification and burial, or if it would jeopardize more lives even to try. He picked his way carefully, even though he knew it by now, and bent, holding the light towards where he thought the head was. He pulled away pieces of brick and mortar until he had uncovered the body as far as the middle of the chest. It would probably not be too difficult or dangerous to get the rest of him free. He was so plastered with clay and dust Monk could distinguish very little of his features beyond that he had long hair and a thin, angular face.

There was a rattle of pebbles behind him and the bow-legged tosher appeared at his elbow. Silently they worked together. It took some time but eventually they freed the body and half-carried, half-dragged it along the old sewer floor. They had to pass through one of the small streams dribbling out of the side wall. It was ice-cold and erratic, but at least smelling of earth rather than sewage.

When they at last reached the top, Monk held the light to look at the man. The question of who he might be froze on his lips. The stream they had passed through had cleaned off the mud, and he saw the face clearly.

It had stared at him in the lantern light of another sewer only two and a half days before. The black hair and brows like a slash across his face, and the narrow-bridged nose were etched in his mind forever. With a shaking hand he touched the lip and pushed it back. There were the extraordinary eyeteeth, one even more prominent than the other. What irony! His hiding place had been the cause of his death! The very stream he had killed to conceal had in turn killed him.

"Oo is 'e?"The tosher looked at Monk, frowning. "I seen 'im somewhere afore, an' I can't 'member where it were."

"He's a man who killed other people for money," Monk replied. "The police are looking for him. I need to find Sergeant Orme. Can you send someone to fetch him? It matters very much."

The tosher shrugged. "I'll put out the word," he promised. "Are you goin' ter leave 'im 'ere?"

"I'm going to stay with him, at least until the police can take him away," Monk replied. Suddenly he was aware of the cold, of the numbness of his feet. Would this be in time to make a difference to the trial? It would at least prove that Melisande Ewart had seen a real person. Might that be enough to swing the jury? Or to frighten Argyll?

He waited, crouching in the dark beside the corpse, hearing shouts and seeing lanterns waving in the distance across the rubble. It had started to rain again. The light shone yellow on the faces of the rocks and black pools of water between. The giant machine roared in the mist like some monstrous, half-human creature, still grinding and thumping as more debris was hauled up. Monk was not sure if it was his imagination, but it seemed to be settling deeper into the earth.

It was about half an hour when at last Orme appeared, waving a lantern, Crow on his heels.

"You got 'im?" Orme asked, bending to look at the dead body.

"Yes." Monk had no doubt at all.

Crow stared at him. His face was lit on one side, and shadowed on the other, but his expression was a mask of anger and scalding contempt. "Doesn't look so much dead, does he!" he said quietly. Then he bent down, frowning a little. Experimentally he touched one of the man's hands, then picked it up. His frown deepened and he looked up at Monk. "You think he was killed in the fall?"

"Yes. His legs are crushed. He was probably trapped." He was half ashamed as he said it. "I should feel sorry for anyone caught like that, but all I feel for him is angry we can't make him tell us who paid him. I'd bring him into court, broken legs, broken back, and all."

"Scuff II be all right," Orme said quietly, looking not at Monk but at Crow. "Won't 'e?"

"Yes, I should think so," Crow agreed. "But look at his legs, Mr. Monk."

"What about them? They're both broken."

"See any blood?"

"No. Probably washed off in the water we took him through. I dragged him; he's heavier than you'd think."

Crow looked at the body again, more carefully. Orme and Monk watched, growing more curious and then unaccountably concerned.

"Why does it matter?" Monk said finally.

Crow stood up, his legs stiff, moving awkwardly. "Because he was dead before the slide hit him," he replied. "Dead bodies don't bleed. The only blood staining anything is on his coat, from the bullet hole in his chest. The river didn't wash that out."

Monk found himself shaking even more violently. "You mean he's been murdered? Surely he'd never have shot himself!"

"Not in the back, anyway," Crow replied. "Went in under his left shoulder blade, came out the front. I reckon whoever employed him paid his last account."

Monk swallowed.

"Are you absolutely sure?"

Crow pulled his mouth tight and rolled his eyes very slightly. "Take a look at the bastard yourself, but of course I'm sure! I'm no police surgeon, and don't want to be, but I know a bullet hole when I see one! Heavy caliber, I'd say, but ask the experts."

Monk straightened up. "Thank you. Will you and Sergeant Orme take him to the morgue and call the police surgeon? I must tell the prosecutor in the Sixsmith case, and Superintendent Runcorn. A man's life may hang on this." It was an order, at least as far as Orme was concerned, and a request to Crow.

Orme relaxed. "Of course," he said resignedly. "Come on.'"

Monk went back to Paradise Road to tell Hester what had happened. No message from anyone else, however sympathetically or precisely delivered, would satisfy her-or Monk's own need to see her and tell her himself. He was confused and exhausted by the emotional horror of seeing so many people, in agony of body and terror of mind, whom he could not help. He knew those who were dead had been crushed, buried, and suffocated in the darkness, often alone as they felt life slip away from them. Hester could not heal that. No one could. Nor could she erase the memory. But she would understand. Just to see her would ease the knots locked hard inside him.

It was only now that he realized with amazement that he had not had time, or emotion, to spare, to be afraid for himself! It was a sweet, hot kind of relief. He was not a coward, at least not physically.

And he needed to see for himself that Scuff was still recovering. It was absurd that he should feel so intensely about it, but something compelled him to see Scuffs face for himself.

The moment he opened the door he heard movement upstairs. Before he was halfway along the passage he saw the light go up on the landing and Hester's figure on the top step. Her hair was unpinned and tangled from sleep, but she was still dressed, although barefooted.

"William?" she said urgently, her voice sharp with anxiety. She did not ask specific questions, but they were all there implicitly. Their understanding of each other was founded on the battles and the victories of the past.

He wanted to know about Scuff.

She answered him before he asked. "He's getting stronger all the time," she said, coming silently down the stairs. "A little feverish about midnight, but it passed. It's going to take a week before he can get up much, and far more than that before he can go back to his own life. But he will." Her eyes searched his face. She did not ask if the experiences of the night had been terrible; she read the answer in his demeanor and the fact that he did not even try to find words for what he had seen.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, he took her in his arms and held her close, hard, wordlessly. In his mind he blessed over and over again whatever benevolence had led him to choose a woman whose beauty was of the soul: brave and vulnerable, funny, angry, and wise-someone to whom he need explain nothing.

Monk had no time to sleep, only to wash and change clothes and eat some hot breakfast. Of course, he also went up to look for a few moments at Scuff, who was scrubbed clean and sound asleep. The boy was still wearing Hester's nightgown with the lace edge next to his thin little neck, his left shoulder sitting crookedly over his bandages.

A few hours later, at half past eight, Monk was at Rathbone's office, explaining the night's events. A messenger was dispatched urgently to Runcorn, telling him to contact Melisande Ewart with a request that she be at the Old Bailey along with Runcorn that morning. If she was unwilling, a summons would be issued.

By ten o'clock the court was in session and Rathbone had asked permission to call Monk to the witness stand. Monk was startled by how stiff he was and how his legs ached as he climbed up. He had to grip the rail to steady himself. Even after a meal and a change of clothes he was exhausted. His shoulder ached, and the violence of the night invaded his mind.

Rathbone looked up at him anxiously. The barrister was as elegant as always-immaculately dressed, his fair hair smooth-but his eyes were shadowed and his lips pale and pulled a little tight. Because Monk knew him so well, he could see the tension in him. He knew how close he was to being beaten.

In the front row of the gallery Margaret Ballinger sat, white and unhappy. Her eyes seldom left Rathbone, even though most of the time it was only his back and profile that she could see.

"Mr. Monk," Rathbone began, "will you please tell the court where you were last night?"

Dobie, who apparently had not heard the news, immediately objected.

"Very well, may I rephrase the question?" Rathbone said tightly, his voice scraping in his throat. "As some of the court may know, my lord, there was a catastrophic cave-in at the Argyll Company's sewer construction tunnel last night." He stopped while the public gallery gasped and one or two people cried out. The jurors looked at one another in horror. The clamor subsided only at the judge's demand for order.

"Were you called to the scene, Mr. Monk?" Rathbone concluded.

"Yes." Monk kept his answers as bare and as direct as possible. He glanced only once at Sixsmith up in the dock. The man's powerful face was cast forward, his body rigid with tension and totally unmoving.

"Who called you?" Rathbone asked Monk.

"Sergeant Orme of the Thames River Police."

"Did he say why?"

"No. I believe he assumed that I would want to be involved since I had been investigating the risk of just such a disaster, because of James Havilland's fears and his subsequent death. Also, of course, we were doing all we could to help, as were the Metropolitan Police, the fire services, and various doctors, navvies, and any able-bodied men in the area."

"Your point is taken, Sir Oliver," the judge assured him. He turned to Monk. "I would like to know, Inspector, what you found. Was it of the nature that you had been led to fear?"

"Yes, my lord," Monk replied. "That, and greater."

"Please be more specific."

It was the line that Rathbone had intended to take, so Monk was happy to respond. "James Havilland had intimated that he feared a disaster if there was not a great deal more time and care taken in the excavations. He did not record precisely what he feared-or if he did, I did not find it. There are risks of land movement-slippage, subsidence-in any major work. He seemed to fear something further. What seems to have occurred last night was that the diggings went too close to an underground river and the river burst the walls, carrying an enormous weight of earth and rubble with it, and flooding the tunnels."

There was too much noise of horror and distress from the gallery and jurors for Monk to continue, and even the judge looked stricken. Obviously the news had not yet reached the daily papers, and few had heard it even by word of mouth.

"Silence!" the judge ordered, but there was no anger in his voice. He was calling his court to order, but without criticism. "I assume, Mr. Monk, that you are here, in spite of your appalling night, because there is some evidence Sir Oliver feels pertinent to the case, even at this late stage of events?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Very well. Sir Oliver, please ask your questions."

"Thank you, my lord," Rathbone acknowledged. "Mr. Monk, during the course of the night, did you bring to the surface any bodies of the dead or the still living?"

"Yes."

"Were any of them people that you knew?"

"Yes."

"Who were they?"

"Two navvies that I had spoken with, a tosher-a man who retrieves objects of value from the sewers-and one other man whom I had met once before." He stopped abruptly, memories of the pistol shot and Scuff falling momentarily choking his breath. He was so tired that the past and present collided with each other and the courtroom seemed to sway.

"Where did you meet him before, Mr. Monk?"

Monk realized that Rathbone had asked him twice. He stiffened his back and shoulders. "In the sewers," he replied. "When I was looking for the man Mrs. Ewart saw coming out of the mews after James Havilland was shot."

"You did not arrest him?" Rathbone sounded surprised.

"He shot the boy who was guiding me," Monk replied. "I had to get the lad to the surface."

The judge leaned forward. "Is the boy in satisfactory condition, Mr. Monk?"

"Yes, my lord. We got him medical treatment, took the bullet out. He seems to be recovering. Thank you."

"Good. Good."

Dobie rose to his feet. "My lord, all this is very moving, but it actually proves nothing at all. This unfortunate man, who appears to be without a name, is dead-conveniently for the prosecution-so he cannot testify to anything at all. He may be no more than some unfortunate indigent who thought to sleep quietly in the Havillands' stable. Apparently he met his own tragic death when the excavations collapsed and buried him alive. We have no right, and no evidence, to make a villain of him now that he cannot answer for himself." He smiled, pleased with his point, and looked around the courtroom before he resumed his seat.

"Sir Oliver?" The judge raised his eyebrows.

Rathbone smiled. It was a thin, calm gesture that Monk had seen on his lips before, both when he was winning and moving in for the final thrust and when he was losing and playing a last, desperate card.

"Mr. Monk," he said smoothly in the utter silence. "Are you certain that this is the same man who shot the boy guiding you in the sewers? Surely the sewers are extremely dark. Isn't one face, when you are startled and possibly afraid, pretty much like another?"

Monk gave him a small, bleak smile. "He held a lantern high up, I imagine in order to see us better and maybe take aim." The moment was etched on his brain as if by a blade. He gripped the rail in front of him. "He had straight black hair and brows, a narrow nose, and highly unusual teeth. His eyeteeth were prominent and longer than the others, especially the left one. When a man is drawing a gun at you, it is a sight you do not forget." He decided not to say any more. The tension was too stark for decoration with words to be appropriate. No one in the room moved, except one woman who gave a violent shudder.

"I see," Rathbone acknowledged. "And did this unfortunate creature, malevolent or not, meet his own death as a result of last night's disastrous cave-in?"

"No, he'd been shot in the back. He was already dead when the cave-in occurred."

Dobie shot to his feet. "Objection, my lord. How can Mr. Monk possibly know that? Was he there? Did he see him get shot?"

Rathbone merely turned very slowly from Dobie to look at Monk, his eyebrows raised.

In the dock Sixsmith leaned forward.

"The man's legs were broken by the timber and rubble that fell on him," Monk replied. "There was no bleeding."

In the gallery a woman gasped. The jurors stared at Monk, frowning. Dobie shook his head as if Rathbone had taken leave of his wits.

Rathbone waited.

"The living bleed; the dead do not," Monk explained. "When the heart stops, there is no more flow of blood. His coat around the gunshot wound was caked with dry blood, but his legs were clean. Rigor mortis had already set in. The police surgeon will give you time of death, I imagine."

Dobie flushed and said nothing.

"Thank you." Rathbone nodded at Monk graciously. "I have no further questions for you."

Dobie declined to add anything, and Monk was excused.

He left the witness box but remained in the court while Rathbone called the surgeon, who corroborated all that Monk had said.

Then Runcorn slipped into a seat in the row opposite Monk's in the gallery just as Melisande Ewart took the stand. She walked up the steps of the witness box and faced the room. She was very composed, but even those who had not seen her before might have detected the effort it cost her. Her body was stiff, her shoulders rigid.

Monk glanced at Runcorn and saw him leaning forward, his gaze intent upon Melisande, as if by strength of will he would support her. Monk wondered if she had the faintest idea how profound was his feeling, and how extraordinary that was for a man such as he. If she did, would it please her or frighten her? Or would she treat tenderly that enormous compliment and read its vulnerability as well?

Rathbone moved into the center of the floor.

The jury sat silent, like men carved of ivory.

"Mrs. Ewart," Rathbone began, "I believe Superintendent Runcorn of the Metropolitan Police has just taken you to identify the body of the man Mr. Monk brought up from the cave-in at the construction. Is that correct?"

"Yes." Her voice was clear but very quiet.

There was a murmur of sympathy around the gallery. Some of the jurors nodded and their faces softened.

Monk looked up at Sixsmith. His heavy face was motionless, crowded with an emotion impossible to read.

"Have you ever seen him before?" Rathbone asked Melisande.

"Yes," she answered with a catch in her voice. "I saw him coming out of the mews that serves the home where I live at the moment, and also served that of Mr. James Havilland."

"When did you see this man?"

"On the night of Mr. Havilland's death."

"At any other times?"

"No. Never."

"You have seen him just once before today, and yet you are certain it is the same man?"

"Yes." Now she did not waver at all.

Rathbone could not afford to let it go so easily. "How is it that you are so sure?" he persisted.

"Because of his face in general, but his teeth in particular," she replied. She was now even paler, and she held tightly to the rail as if she needed its support. "Superintendent Runcorn moved the man's lips so I could see his teeth. I am confident enough to swear under oath that it is the same man."

Runcorn relaxed and eased his body back into the seat, letting out his breath in a long sigh.

"Thank you, Mrs. Ewart," Rathbone said graciously. "I have nothing further to ask you. I appreciate your time and your courage in facing what must have been extremely unpleasant for you."

Dobie stood up and looked at Melisande, then at the jury. Straightening his gown on his shoulders, he sat down again.

Rathbone then played a desperate card, but he had no choice, for he had to show purpose and connection. He called Jenny Argyll.

She was dressed in full mourning and looked as if she were ready to be pronounced dead herself. Her movements were awkward. She looked neither to the right nor to the left, and it seemed as if she might falter and crumple to the ground before she made it all the way to the top of the steps. The usher watched her anxiously. Even Sixsmith jerked forward, his face suddenly alive with fear. The guards beside him pulled him back, but not before Jenny had looked up at him. Now her eyes were burning, and it seemed as if she might actually collapse.

Alan Argyll had yet to testify, so he was not in the court. Had he any idea of the net closing around him?

Rathbone spoke to Jenny, coaxing from her the agonizing testimony he had wanted so badly only a few days earlier.

"You wrote the letter asking your father to go to his stable at midnight, in order to meet someone?"

"Yes." Her voice was barely audible.

"Whom was he to meet?"

She was ashen. "My husband."

There was a gasp around the entire room.

"Why in the stable?" Rathbone was asking. "It was a November night. Why not in the house, where it was warm and dry and refreshment could be offered?"

Jenny Argyll was ashen. She had to force her voice to make it audible. "To… to avoid an interruption by my sister. It was to be a secret meeting.

"Who asked you to write the letter, Mrs. Argyll?"

She closed her eyes as if the terror and betrayal were washing over her like the black water that had burst through the sides of the tunnel and engulfed the navvies deep underground. "My husband."

In the dock something indefinable within Sixsmith appeared to ease, as if he smelled victory at last.

Rathbone allowed a moment's terrible silence, then he asked the last question. "Did you know that your father was to be killed in that stable, Mrs. Argyll?"

"No!" Now her voice was strong and shrill. "My husband told me it was to be a meeting to try to persuade my father that he was wrong about the tunnels, and to stop the navvies and toshers from making any more trouble!"

"As Mr. Sixsmith has told us," Rathbone concluded, unable to resist making the point. "Thank you, Mrs. Argyll."

Dobie looked confused. Suddenly, at the moment when he expected to be swept off his feet, the tide had turned and retreated before him with no apparent explanation.

He asked only one question. "It was your husband who asked this letter of you, Mrs. Argyll? Not Mr. Sixsmith?"

"That is correct," she whispered.

He thanked her and excused her.

Monk looked at the judge, whose face was furrowed with puzzlement. It seemed that the prosecution and the defense had changed places, arguing each other's case. Possibly he had understood what was happening, and as long as the law was not flouted nor brought into disrespect, he would leave the drama to play itself out. He adjourned the court for luncheon.

In the afternoon Monk and Runcorn were both there. Dobie called Alan Argyll to the stand, as Rathbone had fervently hoped he would. He had done all he could to make it virtually impossible for him not to.

Argyll walked across the floor white-faced and composed. He glanced upwards once towards the dock, but it was impossible to tell if his eyes met those of Sixsmith or not. Sixsmith was leaning forward again. Surely he must see freedom almost in his grasp.

But Argyll had not been in the court for his wife's testimony. He did not know his grip over her was broken. He waited for Rathbone as if he thought he was still certain of victory. Perhaps he did not even see the open hostility on the jurors' faces. He looked at Dobie without a tremor, and his voice was clear when he answered.

"No. I did not ask my wife to write such a letter." He even managed to affect surprise.

Dobie looked disbelieving. "There is no question that the letter existed, Mr. Argyll, or that your wife wrote it. She has admitted as much to this court. If not at your request, at whose would she do such a thing?"

Argyll paled. Monk could see, from the angle of his head and the way his hands gripped the rail in front of him, that he was suddenly frightened. He started to look up at Sixsmith, then forced himself not to. Was he beginning at last to understand?

"I have no idea," he said with difficulty.

Dobie grew sarcastic. "One of your children, perhaps? Your sister-in-law? Or your brother?"

Argyll's face flamed and his hands clenched on the rail. He swayed as if he might fall over. "My brother is dead, sir! Because Mary Havilland dragged him down with her! And you stand there and accuse him of… of what? How much courage does it take to accuse a murdered man? You disgrace the office you hold, and are a blemish to your profession!"

Dobie blanched, clearly embarrassed and momentarily at a loss to defend himself.

The judge looked from one to the other of them, then up at Aston Sixsmith, whose face was now expressionless. Lastly he looked at Jenny Argyll, who was ashen. Her gaze was fixed in the distance, as if she were held against her will by some inner vision, unable to tear herself from it.

Rathbone said nothing.

The judge looked at Dobie again. "Mr. Dobie, do you wish to rephrase your question? It seems inadequate as it is."

"I will move on, with your lordship's permission," Dobie said, clearing his throat and looking again at Argyll. "James Havilland was in the stables alone at midnight. For whom else would he keep such an extraordinary appointment?"

"I don't know!" Argyll protested.

"Have you ever seen this man they describe, whose teeth are apparently so uniquely recognizable? The man who, it is suggested, actually murdered your father-in-law?"

Argyll hesitated.

There was a faint cough in the gallery, a creak of whalebone stays, then silence.

Jenny Argyll looked up at Sixsmith. Their eyes met and lingered for a moment, then she turned away. What was it Monk saw in Sixsmith s face? Pity for what she was about to lose? Forgiveness that she had not had the courage to do it before? Or anger that she had let him suffer right to the brink, and spoken up only when she had been forced to? His look was steady and unreadable.

Argyll swallowed. "Yes. As Sixsmith said, I wanted to hire someone to prevent the unrest among navvies regarding safety, and stop the toshers, whose territories were disappearing, from becoming violent and disrupting the excavations." He drew in his breath. "We have to finish the new sewers as soon as possible. The threat of disease is appalling."

There was a rustle of movement in the room.

Monk stared at the jury. There was unease among them, but no sympathy. Did they believe him?

"We are aware of this, Mr. Argyll," Dobie answered, beginning to regain his composure. "It is not what you are doing that we question, only the methods you are willing to employ in order to accomplish them. You admit that you met this man, and that you gave Mr. Sixsmith the money to pay him for his work?"

The answer seemed torn from Argyll. "Yes! But to quell violence, not to kill Havilland!"

"But Havilland was a nuisance, wasn't he?" Dobie raised his voice, challenging him now. He took a couple of steps toward the stand. "He believed you were moving too quickly, didn't he, Mr. Argyll? He feared you might disturb the land, cause a subsidence, and possibly even break through into an old, uncharted underground river, didn't he?"

Argyll was now so white he looked as if he might collapse. "I don't know what he thought!" he shouted back, his voice ragged.

"Don't you?" Dobie said sarcastically. He turned away, then spun around and faced the witness stand again. "But he was a nuisance, wasn't he? And even after he was dead, shot in his own stable at midnight and buried in a suicide's grave, his daughter Mary pressed his cause and took it up herself, didn't she?" He was pointing his finger now. "And where is she? Also in a suicide's grave! Along with your ally and younger brother." His smile was triumphant. "Thank you, Mr. Argyll. The court needs no more from you, at least not yet!" He waved his arm to invite Rathbone to question Argyll if he should wish to.

Rathbone declined. Victory was almost within his grasp.

The judge blinked and looked at Rathbone curiously, but he made no remark.

Dobie called Aston Sixsmith. Rathbone's ploy was hardly a gamble anymore.

Sixsmith mounted the stand. The man exuded intelligence and animal power, exhausted as he was. There was a rustle of sympathy from the crowd now. Even the jurors smiled at him. He ignored them all, hoarding his emotion to himself, not yet able to betray his awareness of how close he had been to prison, or even the rope. He looked once again at Jenny Argyll. For an instant there was a softening in his face, gone again almost before it was seen. A sense of decency? His gaze barely touched Alan Argyll. His erstwhile employer was finished, worthless. From the gallery Monk watched Sixsmith with an increasing sense of incredulity.

Rathbone had won. Monk looked across at Margaret Bellinger and saw her eagerness for the moment, her pride in Rathbone's extraordinary achievement for justice.

Dobie was questioning Sixsmith, ramming home the victory. "Did you ever meet this extraordinary assassin before the night you paid him the money Mr. Argyll gave you?" he asked.

"No, sir, I did not," Sixsmith replied quietly.

"Or after that?"

"No, sir."

"Have you any idea who shot him, or why?"

"I know no more than you do, sir."

"Why did you give him the money? For what purpose? Was it to kill James Havilland because he was causing you trouble, and possibly expensive delays?"

"No, sir. Mr. Argyll told me it was to hire men to keep the toshers and navvies from disrupting the work."

"And what about Mr. Havilland?"

"I understood that Mr. Argyll was going to deal with that himself."

"How?"

Sixsmith's gaze was intense. "Show him that he was mistaken. Mr. Havilland was his father-in-law, and I believed that relations were cordial between them."

"Could this man, this assassin, have misunderstood you?"

Sixsmith stared at him. "No, sir. I was quite specific."

Dobie could not resist making the very most of it. He looked at the jury, then at the gallery. "Describe the scene for us," he said at last to Sixsmith. "Let the court see exactly how it was."

Sixsmith obeyed him, speaking slowly and carefully, like a man emerging from a nightmare into the daylight of sanity. He described the room in the public house: the noise, the smell of ale, the straw on the floor, the press of men.

"He came in at about ten o'clock, as near as I can tell" he went on in response to Dobie's prompting. "I knew him straightaway. He was fairly tall, and thin, especially his face. His hair was black and straight, rather long over his collar. His nose was thin at the bridge. But most of all, he had these extraordinary teeth, which I saw when he smiled. He bought a tankard of ale and came straight over to me, as if he already knew who I was. Someone must have described me very well. The man introduced himself, using Argyll's name so I would know who he was. We discussed the problem of the toshers in particular, and I told him a little more about it. I gave him the money. He accepted it, folded it away, and then stood up. I remember he emptied the tankard in one long draught, and then he left, without once looking backwards."

Dobie thanked him and invited Rathbone to contest it if he wished.

Rathbone conceded defeat with both dignity and grace. Not by so much as a glance did he admit that it was actually the most elegant and perhaps the most difficult victory of his career.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty of attempted bribery, and the judge imposed a fine that was no more than a week's pay.

The court erupted in cheers, the gallery rising to its feet. The jury looked intensely satisfied, turning to shake one another's hands and pass words of congratulation.

Margaret abandoned decorum and met Rathbone halfway across the floor as he walked towards her. Her face was shining, but whatever she said to him was lost in the uproar.

Monk also was on his feet. He would speak a word or two to Runcorn, thank him for his courage in being willing to reexamine a case. Then he would go home to tell Hester-and Scuff.